Standardized Testing and Social Control: How SBAC, iReady, and Their Kin Reinforce Class Structures
Standardised testing in the United States has a long and troubling history as a tool for social sorting, deeply intertwined with the eugenics movement that sought to preserve existing social hierarchies. These early tests, designed under the guise of objective measurement, were intended to justify the exclusion of certain groups from educational and economic opportunities, thereby reinforcing the dominance of privileged classes. The legacy of this approach persists in modern educational assessments like the Smarter Balanced Assessment Consortium (SBAC), iReady, Woodcock-Johnson, and similar tools. While the language and methods have evolved, the underlying purpose remains strikingly similar: to sort students in ways that reflect and reinforce existing social structures, as well as to identify those who are or aren’t deemed fit for capitalism.
These assessments claim to measure student ability and readiness, but they do so in a manner that selectively accommodates students who align with the norms of the dominant culture. For instance, whilst the SBAC might offer accommodations like extended time, it often refuses to honour the full range of supports outlined in students’ Individualised Education Programmes (IEPs), particularly those requiring more fundamental alterations to the test structure. As a result, students from marginalised backgrounds—whether due to race, socioeconomic status, or disability—find themselves at a distinct disadvantage. These tests, rather than levelling the playing field, often deepen the divide, ensuring that those already privileged continue to succeed while others are left behind. In this way, modern standardised testing continues to function as a powerful tool of social control, maintaining and reinforcing the class structures that have long defined American society.
The Historical Roots of Standardised Testing
The origins of standardised testing in the United States are deeply rooted in the eugenics movement, which aimed to preserve and enforce social hierarchies by “scientifically” sorting people based on perceived intelligence and worth. This pseudo-scientific movement, which gained traction in the early 20th century, sought to justify the exclusion of certain groups—particularly those deemed “unfit” by the standards of the dominant culture—from educational and economic opportunities. The College Board, an institution now synonymous with educational assessments, played a pivotal role in this effort. Its early development of standardised tests was heavily influenced by eugenicists like Carl Brigham, who was instrumental in creating the Scholastic Aptitude Test (SAT). Brigham and his peers believed that intelligence was hereditary and that certain races and social classes were inherently superior to others. Their tests were designed not merely to measure student aptitude but to reinforce these racist and classist beliefs by systematically excluding those who did not fit their narrow definition of intelligence.
The eugenics movement also targeted disabled individuals, whom they considered a threat to the genetic “purity” of the population. Eugenicists advocated for and implemented horrific programmes, including forced sterilisation of disabled people without their consent, in an attempt to prevent them from passing on their “defective” genes. These programmes were part of a broader agenda to eliminate those whom they deemed undesirable from the gene pool and, by extension, from society. Standardised testing became another tool in this toolkit of exclusion, used to identify and marginalise those who did not meet the eugenicists’ standards of normality and productivity.
Whilst the overtly eugenic rhetoric has largely faded, the legacy of these origins is still evident in modern standardised testing. Today’s assessments, such as the SBAC, iReady, and Woodcock Johnson continue to sort students in ways that maintain existing power structures. Although the language has evolved to focus on concepts like “merit” and “readiness,” the underlying purpose remains strikingly similar: to identify and privilege those who conform to the norms of the dominant culture, whilst marginalising those who do not. This is particularly true for disabled students, who often find that the accommodations they require are either inadequately provided or outright denied. The tests, therefore, continue to function as tools of social control, maintaining the same hierarchies that they were originally designed to uphold. In this way, the eugenic legacy of standardised testing persists, subtly but powerfully influencing who is considered worthy of education and opportunity in our society.
SBAC, iReady, Woodcock Johnson, and the Persistence of Social Control
Modern educational assessments perpetuate the social control mechanisms rooted in their eugenic origins. These tools claim to measure student ability and readiness but selectively accommodate students who align with the “standard” learner model—typically those from more privileged backgrounds—whilst systematically failing others, particularly students with disabilities or those from marginalised communities. This selective accommodation is evident in how the SBAC handles IEPs. While the SBAC may allow certain accommodations like extended time, it often refuses to honour more comprehensive supports, such as the need for simplified, sequential questions or other essential modifications. Consequently, students who require these supports are unfairly excluded from equitable assessment, their abilities underrepresented, and their academic potential misjudged.
The iReady assessment, similarly, is marketed as a learning support tool but often functions as a screening mechanism that channels students from marginalised backgrounds into lower educational tracks. Although it purports to offer an objective measure of student readiness, iReady is normed on a demographic that does not represent the full diversity of the student population. This demographic typically includes middle-class, English-speaking students with access to abundant educational resources. Students who do not fit this profile, such as recent immigrants, English language learners, and those from low-income families, are often labelled as “behind” or “at risk” based on their iReady results. This classification pushes them into remedial programmes that provide a diluted curriculum, reinforcing the notion that these students are inherently less capable. Thus, iReady continues to uphold and perpetuate the existing educational and social hierarchies.
The Woodcock-Johnson assessment, frequently used for academic evaluations of students with disabilities, similarly reinforces class structures through both its content and testing structure. This assessment includes spelling and word recognition tasks that feature words derived from languages like French, which are more commonly encountered by students from elite backgrounds. This linguistic bias disadvantages students from less privileged backgrounds, who are less likely to have been exposed to such vocabulary. Additionally, the test’s “passage comprehension” section often measures not true comprehension but rather background knowledge that is more accessible to students from higher socio-economic classes. For example, a passage might require familiarity with cultural references or historical events that are not typically taught or discussed in less privileged households, unfairly penalising students for lacking this specific, class-based knowledge.
Moreover, the Woodcock-Johnson test includes timed sections that conflict directly with IEP accommodations for extended time. For students who require more time to process information, such as many autistic students, the pressure of timed portions drastically impacts their performance. In these sections, the inability to produce a large volume of correct answers within the short time allotted is equated with “not knowing,” which significantly reduces their scores. For autistic students, who often do not perform well under timed conditions, this measure is invalid, yet the instrument remains in wide use. This misalignment between the test’s structure and the needs of diverse learners illustrates how these assessments fail to provide a fair measure of student abilities. Despite these glaring flaws, the Woodcock-Johnson continues to be used extensively, further entrenching the biases and inequalities it was never designed to address. Through these mechanisms, modern standardised testing continues to function as a tool of social control, perpetuating the class structures and inequalities that have long defined the educational landscape.
Cultural and Socioeconomic Bias in Testing
Standardised tests like the SBAC, iReady, and Woodcock-Johnson are inherently biased towards the norms and experiences of the dominant culture, which dictates what is considered “intelligent” or “competent.” These tests are designed with content, language, and expectations that align with the backgrounds of more privileged students, typically those from middle to upper-class, white, English-speaking families. This alignment ensures that students who have been exposed to the cultural and educational norms of the dominant society are more likely to perform well. In contrast, students from different cultural or socioeconomic backgrounds, including recent immigrants, English language learners, and those from low-income families, often find themselves alienated by these assessments. The language used, the context of questions, and the cultural references embedded within the tests are often unfamiliar to these students, which unfairly disadvantages them and leads to lower scores.
This systematic disadvantage is not just an oversight but a mechanism that helps maintain existing class structures. By sorting students into categories that frequently reflect their socioeconomic status, these tests perpetuate cycles of poverty and limit opportunities for upward mobility. Students who do not perform well on these culturally biased tests are often funneled into lower educational tracks, provided with fewer resources, and deemed less capable of achieving academic success. This not only reinforces existing inequalities but also ensures that the status quo remains unchallenged.
In California, the SBAC is particularly high-stakes, with the state using testing data to rate school performance. Schools that serve a higher proportion of students from marginalised communities, including those with IEPs or English language learners (ELLs), often suffer under this system (e.g., every Title 1 school). The SBAC’s quasi-state-run nature makes it difficult to challenge the validity of its measures, even when schools experience a “Regression towards the Mean” effect, where unaccommodated students with IEPs or ELLs consistently score poorly, dragging the mean down. This tainted data is then used by groups promoting the end of free public schooling—like the neoliberal Project 2025 crowd—to justify their attacks on public education. They argue that public schools are failing, using biased test results as evidence, when in reality, these results reflect the tests’ failure to accommodate and fairly assess all students. In doing so, these assessments become tools not just of academic evaluation, but of social and political control, reinforcing the very inequalities they claim to measure.
The Inadequacy of Current Assessments
From my perspective in the classroom and as an IEP case manager, standardised assessments are not just flawed measures of learning—they are instruments designed to perpetuate the capitalist status quo by reinforcing existing class and race structures. These tests, presented as objective evaluations of student ability, are in reality deeply embedded within the ideology of capitalist society, where they function to sort individuals according to their perceived economic utility. This sorting process begins in the classroom but extends far beyond, infiltrating every aspect of societal structure, including the labour market.
The inherent biases in these assessments render them unfit for purpose, especially in a diverse society where students come from a wide range of cultural, linguistic, and socio-economic backgrounds. The content of these tests is normed on the experiences of the dominant, wealthier, predominantly white classes, whose cultural capital aligns with the expectations embedded in the test questions. This ensures that students from these backgrounds are more likely to succeed, whilst those from marginalised communities—who may not share the same cultural references or linguistic fluency—are systematically disadvantaged. The failure of these assessments to accommodate all students fairly is not merely a technical oversight; it is a feature of their design. By reinforcing the notion that only certain types of knowledge and ways of thinking are valuable, these tests perpetuate the ideology of meritocracy, which in turn justifies and sustains existing social hierarchies.
This stratification is central to the functioning of capitalist society. By pushing students from marginalised backgrounds into remedial tracks or denying them opportunities for advancement, these assessments help to maintain a labour force that is segmented along class and racial lines. The higher tracks, populated by students who perform well on these biased assessments, prepare individuals for roles that are more likely to lead to higher economic status, whilst the lower tracks funnel students into lower-paying, less secure jobs. This process ensures that the ruling class maintains its position of power, whilst the working class remains a source of cheap, exploitable labour.
This testing culture has further permeated the hiring processes within capitalism, where employers increasingly use a variety of assessments to screen out “undesirable” candidates. These tests, often marketed as tools to measure “performance” and “fit,” are in reality mechanisms for enforcing conformity to capitalist norms. They are designed to identify individuals who not only possess the requisite skills but who are also likely to uphold the existing power structures within the workplace. Those who do not conform—whether due to their socio-economic background, race, or other factors—are systematically excluded from higher-paying, more stable positions.
This practice mirrors the role of standardised tests in education: both serve to preserve the existing social order by reinforcing class and race divisions. In the labour market, just as in the classroom, these tests are used to sort individuals according to their economic utility, ensuring that those in power remain in power while the majority are kept in positions of subordination. In this way, the testing culture, whether in education or employment, functions as a tool of capitalist oppression, maintaining the very inequalities that Critical Theory and Marxist analysis seek to dismantle. The persistence of these practices underscores the need for a radical rethinking of how we assess and value human potential, moving away from narrow, biased measures that serve the interests of capitalism and towards a more equitable system that recognises and nurtures the diverse capabilities of all individuals.
Alternatives to the Status Quo
If the SBAC were truly a valid measure of student ability, it would perform consistently across all cultural contexts. In theory, one could translate the SBAC into any indigenous language and expect it to measure the same skills and knowledge accurately. However, this notion quickly unravels upon closer inspection. The SBAC is only valid for the group on which it has been normed—a group that is predominantly middle-class, English-speaking, and culturally dominant. The inclusion of disabled students, particularly those with complex needs, is often avoided in this norming process because they are considered “problematic” to test, which further exposes the limitations of these assessments as universal measures of ability.
Moreover, it is frequently argued that implementing a student’s IEP with full fidelity during testing would compromise the SBAC’s validity. This is because the test’s norming was conducted with a pre-selected set of accommodations, specifically chosen to maintain its internal consistency. Introducing accommodations that go beyond this narrow scope—such as those tailored to individual IEPs—would disrupt the standardisation process and invalidate the comparisons that the SBAC relies on. This reasoning, however, underscores the fundamental flaw in the SBAC’s design: it is only valid within the confines of its own limited and exclusionary framework. Rather than accommodating the diverse needs of all students, the SBAC prioritises the preservation of its own validity over providing a fair and accurate assessment for every learner. This approach ultimately highlights the inadequacy of such assessments as measures of true student ability, particularly in a diverse educational landscape.
To move beyond this flawed model, we must embrace alternatives that honour the diversity of students’ backgrounds, learning styles, and cultural contexts. Instead of relying on standardised tests that impose a one-size-fits-all measure, we should adopt more holistic, culturally responsive, and individualised forms of assessment. These assessments would not seek to force all students into a narrow definition of “success,” but rather, they would recognise and value the unique strengths and abilities that each student brings to the table. This could include project-based assessments, portfolios of student work, and other forms of evaluation that allow students to demonstrate their learning in ways that are meaningful to them.
Breaking down the barriers created by standardised testing requires a fundamental rethinking of how we assess and educate students. We must dismantle the systems that perpetuate inequality, moving away from rigid, norm-referenced assessments that serve only to sort and exclude. Instead, we should build an education system that promotes equity and inclusion for all. This means not only creating assessments that are fair and accessible to every student but also ensuring that our educational practices as a whole are designed to support the diverse needs of all learners. By doing so, we can begin to create a more just and equitable society, where every student has the opportunity to succeed on their own terms, rather than being judged against the narrow standards of the dominant culture.
Final thoughts …
The time has come to challenge the pervasive use of standardised tests, which function more as tools of social control than as accurate measures of student ability. These tests, with their inherent biases and selective accommodations, serve to maintain the status quo, reinforcing the cultural, racial, and economic hierarchies that benefit the ruling class. Educators, parents, and policymakers must demand a shift away from these flawed measures, towards assessments that truly reflect the diverse abilities of all students, not just those who fit the narrow mold of the dominant culture.
The alternatives to standardised testing—such as project-based assessments, portfolios, and culturally responsive evaluations—offer a more holistic view of student learning. These methods honour the unique backgrounds, experiences, and learning styles of each student, providing a more accurate and equitable measure of their abilities. However, these alternatives are rarely considered by those in power because they do not serve the needs of capital. Unlike standardised tests, which can be commoditised, sold, and used to rank students in ways that reinforce existing social structures, these more nuanced forms of assessment cannot be easily packaged or monetised. They do not contribute to the sorting and segregation of students into predetermined economic roles, nor do they help to perpetuate the ruling class’s dominance in society.
As long as our education system remains tied to the demands of capital, truly equitable assessments will continue to be sidelined in favour of those that prioritise profit over people. But this does not have to be our reality. By advocating for a rethinking of how we assess and educate students, we can begin to dismantle the systems that perpetuate inequality and build a new educational paradigm—one that genuinely supports and uplifts every student, regardless of their background.
This is not just a call for better tests; it is a call for a revolution in how we understand and value education itself. We must move beyond an educational system that sorts and segregates, that labels and limits, and towards one that empowers every student to reach their full potential. This means embracing assessments that are as diverse as the students they serve, and that reflect the true complexity of human learning and intelligence. It means rejecting the narrow, commodified measures that serve only to reinforce the status quo, and instead, embracing a vision of education that is inclusive, equitable, and just. Only then can we create a society where every student, regardless of their background, has the opportunity to succeed and thrive.